


The Oldest Instinct

by EPS (Lillian_Shepherd)



Series: Agents of Light and Darkness [2]
Category: Garrison's Gorillas
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 13:29:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian_Shepherd/pseuds/EPS
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If that is how you feel, you must let me help."</p><p>"Dammit, Actor—" Garrison shook his head, sat firmly on his inclination to let the conman take control, and continued: "Go with the others.  I'll be okay."</p><p>Actor said something in a language Garrison did not know but which, from its tone, was not readily translatable in polite company.  "Not without help.  And you do not get rid of me that easily."</p><p>Did he know? Garrison wondered again.  The remark had been very pointed.</p><p>He still hadn't figured out how Actor found things out so easily - he often knew things before Garrison was told himself.</p><p>"I know an inn," Actor said, "where they ask no questions, and there are people I want you to meet.  Please."  He held out one hand.</p><p>********************************************</p><p>Follows on directly from "Slouching Towards Bethlehem."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Oldest Instinct

The sun was sinking over the manor house as Garrison looked up at Actor, and said, "I never imagined, when you all sat around in that cellar near Paris and watched Wheeler try to knife me, that I'd receive such friendship from you."

"If that is how you feel, you must let me help."

"Dammit, Actor—" Garrison shook his head, sat firmly on his inclination to let the conman take control, and continued: "Go with the others. I'll be okay."

Actor said something in a language Garrison did not know but which, from its tone, was not readily translatable in polite company. "Not without help. And you do not get rid of me that easily."

Did he know? Garrison wondered again. The remark had been very pointed.

He still hadn't figured out how Actor found things out so easily - he often knew things before Garrison was told himself.

"I know an inn," Actor said, "where they ask no questions, and there are people I want you to meet. Please." He held out one hand.

Mesmerised, Garrison took it and allowed himself to be pulled to his feet.

 

He wasn't even allowed to return to the manor house for his coat. "If we aren't quick, the others will borrow the jeep before we do," Actor said, when he protested.

"We could take them with us. It was what you originally suggested."

Actor just shook his head, climbed behind the jeep's wheel, and started the engine.

 

Though Garrison had an excellent sense of direction and thought he knew all the roads around the manor, he found himself unable to track their position on his mental map. Of course, the Blackout made it difficult, but he hadn't thought you could drive this far without passing through a village.

Nor were there any sounds. He hadn't even heard an owl, let alone voices, the drone of an aircraft engine or the popping of a doodlebug. 

Finally, Actor pulled the jeep in under the trees, where it was hidden from the road. "We have to walk from here," he said, then added, "It's not far."

Garrison shrugged, and followed him.

Though the moon was not yet full, they could see their way easily in the whitened wood. Frost sparkled in military lines down the tree-trunks, outlined the leaves crackling underfoot.

It was difficult to remember that this was England, a landscape shaped by man over many centuries, that there was a road only a few hundred yards away.

Lines from Kipling floated through his mind...

_They shut the road through the woods,_

_Seventy years ago._

_Weather and rain have undone it again_

_And now you would never know_

_There was once a road through the woods_

_Before they planted the trees..._

And how long ago had these giants been planted? And who - or what - had planted them?

A softer light than that from the moon flickered through the trees. Suddenly, they came onto a road, cobbled and heavily cambered from the centre. Garrison almost fell over the ruts of wagon-tracks worn deep into the stone as he stared at the rambling building, which seemed about to fall into the road itself, held back only by the cradling branches of the wind-whispering yew trees that surrounded it. Its windows, though, were bright with a light far softer than electricity or gas.

He looked sharply at Actor's dark shadow outlined against the stars. "They're breaking the Blackout—"

"The trees mask the light."

"But—"

"No German pilot will see it, I promise you. Now come inside."

 

The door was oak so old and weathered that it was almost white in the moonshine. Actor knocked with his fist: three sharp raps.

The door was flung wide.

Garrison sucked in his breath.

The woman who stood in the doorway held an oil-lamp in one hand. Her eyes were the green of pine-trees, dark and secret, her hair the bronze of oaks in autumn. At first Garrison thought she was very young, but that was merely a flattery of the lamplight for, though her skin was clear and cloud-pale, there were lines in the corners of her eyes and mouth as she smiled. "Come in peace and be welcome."

"Nothing is more welcome than the sight of your sweet face, Morwen," Actor said, taking her hand and bowing over it.

She burst out laughing, rose on her toes – though she was a tall woman, Garrison realised, her eyes on a level with his – and kissed Actor's cheek in return. "For that flattery, I will allow you the name. But what are you calling yourself nowadays?"

"Actor."

"Ah. And your friend?" The secret eyes touched Garrison briefly.

"Call him 'Warden'."

Garrison opened his mouth to protest, caught Actor's warning glance and subsided. When they were running a con he trusted the other man's judgement completely.

This might not be a con – and if it was, who was the mark? – but Actor knew these people and he didn't.

"You want a private room?" Morwen asked.

"Yes, though we may come into the main hall later, if there is to be music."

"There will be."

"But first a bath, and food."

The woman dimpled, and curtseyed mockingly. "Your wish is our command, oh most-welcome Actor. Come this way."

Garrison tried not to notice that Actor's hand reached for her ass as she turned, or that she did no more than shake a finger at him.

 

The inn was much bigger than it had looked from the road, full of winding passages, truncated stairways and rooms with no right angles. Garrison was lost within seconds as he followed the light of the lamp and the creak of his hostess' footsteps, though with Actor at his back he was confident enough of arriving at their destination.

He had grown used to the "public" and "saloon" – or "snug" – bars in the pubs around the manor and in London. Here, there seemed to be no such thing, just small, stone-flagged rooms with benches and tables illuminated only by the smouldering log fires and an occasional oil lamp. The smell of woodsmoke rather than beer permeated the whole building.

Finally, they emerged into a series of rooms which Garrison guessed must be at the rear of the building. Morwen pushed open a door and stood aside. "Leave your clothes here. I'll see they're placed in your room."

Wondering what the Hell he'd gotten himself into, Garrison followed Actor inside. "What's going on?" he asked, as the door closed.

"Off," said Actor, shedding his jacket and hanging it on a peg.

"Why?"

Actor paused in the act of unbuckling his belt. "Bath," he said. "I, for one, am sick of cold showers and a few inches of lukewarm water."

"Actor—"

"Fuel rationing isn't your responsibility, or mine. Besides, the water's heated by a wood furnace. So, unless you want to bathe with your clothes on..." He sat down on the bench, and began to take off his shoes and socks.

Garrison shook his head and stood hesitating, absently watching Actor shed shirt and pants.

Well, he'd followed him into this.

There seemed nothing for it but to copy him.

 

When Actor opened the door to the next room, steam billowed out, enveloping him as he stepped into it and out of sight. Dreadful memories surging to the surface, Garrison yanked off his singlet and underpants, threw them on the bench, and hurried after him.

Beyond the door was hot fog. Unable to see even his feet, he stretched out a groping hand. "Actor?"

"Here, Warden." The hand was clasped, and – for the second time that day – he was drawn towards Actor, a slightly darker form in the steam, seated on a pale stone bench against a pale plastered wall.

"I wasn't expecting this," he said, settling down a few inches away, relieved that the steam cast a veil between Actor's perfections and his own inadequacies.

Actor chuckled. "That's the point of surprises. Now, relax for a while."

Relax...

Garrison thought of Drachgiftzahn, of the steam rising over the fissure and the clank of the grids on which thousands of people had been scalded to death, their flesh steamed away-

"Warden!" Actor's arm, powerful and slick with sweat far warmer than his own, was around his shoulders. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing." But he knew Actor could feel him shivering, despite the heat of the steam room.

He didn't comment on it, though, just remarked that maybe they'd spent enough time here, and steered Garrison out of the far door.

 

Half-lying, half-sitting in the huge circular hot-tub which he was sharing with Actor, Garrison felt his depression begin to lift. This was partly due to his companion's wicked sense of humour. Since they had emerged from the steam room into this white-plastered room with its domed ceiling and mock-Roman mosaic floor, Actor had kept up a constant stream of anecdotes that had become funnier and filthier by the minute.

Then Garrison saw the door open, glimpsed his hostess' russet hair, and clamped a broad hand over Actor's mouth. The conman's resistance sent the pair of them rolling in the water, and a good deal of it slopping onto the floor.

When Garrison surfaced, shaking the water from his hair, he found himself looking directly into the woman's evergreen eyes. Suddenly embarrassed, he crouched in the water to cover his nakedness. Actor, though, rolled on his back and grinned at Morwen over his bobbing genitals. "The Warden didn't want you to hear the punch line."

Ignoring him, she skirted the pool of water on the floor and offered Garrison a glass full of a dark golden liquid.

"Is the other one for me?" Actor asked.

"It was, but I'm not sure you deserve it," she told him, holding it just out of reach.

Watching them teasing each other in the matter of the old friends they undoubtedly were, Garrison sipped at the liquid, finding it lusciously sweet and spicy, though it burned down into his stomach with a warmth that suggested he had better treat it with respect if he wanted to go home sober.

Not that it looked as if they would be going home tonight. 

"What will you pay me for it?" Morwen was demanding, letting her eyes rest on Actor's naked body.

"That depends on what you want," Actor said, very seriously.

Something passed between them in that moment, then Morwen handed the glass to Actor and turned to smile at Garrison. "Supper's been prepared for you. I'll send Edwin to escort you into the main hall."

 

Supper consisted of a pie with a thick suet crust containing a mixture of dark and light strong-tasting meat that Garrison was pretty sure was a mixture of venison and partridge. He might have asked more questions if he hadn't been aware of eyes on him from the dimness of the hall.

This rose two stories above the stone flagged floor to blackened roof rafters, with balconies - minstrels' galleries? - on three sides, and a great chimney of red brick forming the fourth. The roaring fire in its hearth appeared to be consuming a whole tree, and three quarters of the patrons clustered about it.

Some of these were dressed in clothes that seemed odd even in an England where everything that could be worn was being recycled.

Not that his uniform had been returned to him. He was wearing a baggy, open-necked shirt of soft linen, and equally loose trousers of the same material, all supplied by his hostess. Actor wore one of the calf-length robes that had been the only other choice.

What sort of place is this, anyway?

Still, the ale was so strong he began to feel a good deal less embarrassed.

Then a large, bearded man in leather, one eye puckered to blindness, put his feet on the fender and began to sing, his words raising memory, the tune something beyond even that, a string of notes that seemed part of Garrison's bones.

When he had done, the woman in red seated beside him rose, and sang a ballad in a dialect so ancient he had difficulty in catching more than one word in five, yet somehow he understood the meaning perfectly.

Pictures formed in the red heart of the fire, formed and vanished, taking their significance with them. He was growing sleepy again, hardly aware of the progress of songs through the patrons, until he felt Actor rise from his seat beside him.

He didn't know a single word of the language, but the passion of a man in love burned through, the promises that no-one ever kept.

The old Romantic probably believed it, too...

Actor nudged him. His own song ended, the conman was looking down at him expectantly.

He couldn't. Not in this hall, with all these people about him. And his voice, bass-baritone, was nothing special, without much range...

Somehow, he found himself on his feet. The people here had sung songs of war and of glory. Though he knew many, they would taste foul now. They had also, even Actor, sung songs of love, as if it were something easy to come by and impossible to lose: that wasn't his experience either.

The ballad that came to his lips was not as old as some of the songs sung that night, though old by his country's standards, a legacy of a war where brother fought brother, and there had been no glory.

_"Come all ye valiant soldiers – a story I will tell,_

_About the bloody battle that was fought on Shiloh hill._

_It was an awful struggle and will cause your blood to chill;_

_It was the famous battle that was fought on Shiloh hill."_

The room was silent, save for the crackling of the fires. It took all the courage he had to keep singing, to remind these people that war wasn't glorious, as he had once thought it, and that its consequences were death – and worse.

_"Before the day was ended, the battle ceased to roar,_

_And thousands of brave soldiers had fell to rise no more;_

_They left their vacant ranks for some other ones to fill,_

_And now their mouldering bodies all lie on Shiloh hill."_

He wasn't sure he could sing the last verse, wasn't sure that he still believed enough to sing it, yet the words somehow came easily, with all the horror of Drachgiftzahn behind them.

_"And now my song is ended about those bloody plains;_

_I hope the sight by mortal man may ne'er be seen again!_

_But I pray to God, the Saviour, if conversant with Thy will,_

_To save the souls of all who fell on bloody Shiloh hill."_

He sat down to a whisper of comment, an uneasy swirling in the room, as if he had stirred a still pool of feeling, raising detritus of memory that had better been left undisturbed.

Then a tall white-haired woman touched the strings of her harp – and the noise of voices ceased, leaving the silver notes floating in the air like a charm. As they faded, the real music began, leaving Garrison speechless, horrified that anyone in the room – especially himself – could have dared to sing at all, let alone lament the useless deaths of men he had never known.

Only it hadn't been those deaths he had been lamenting: it hadn't even been the deaths of men he had known, men he had himself killed, all the lives thrown away... It had been the death of his own dreams, his own patriotism.

"Come." It was Morwen, standing before them, a tray with empty tankards still in her hands. "We'd better slip away under the harp- spell." She looked hard at Garrison. "You may have raised spectres best left to sleep, 'Warden.'" Yet if there was an accusation, it seemed to be aimed at Actor.

Who said: "There are those who guard the dream, and those who guard against the nightmare. Both are necessary."

"Did I say otherwise? But those who dream resent the nightmare – and resent the crowing of the cock even more. Now come."

She led the way out, handing the tray to a potboy as she passed.

 

The bedroom seemed a long way from the hall yet, through some trick of acoustics, Garrison could still hear the music. The room itself was small, oak-beamed, irregular and sparsely furnished. There was a large bed in one corner, covered in a quilt embroidered with unicorns. Just one bed...

Morwen put the lamp on a chest, and the bar across the door.

"Won't your guests miss you?" he asked her, almost unable to hear his own voice for the thunder of his heart.

"There are others who will entertain them. It is a long time since I have seen Actor – and he will have brought you here for a purpose... one I am happy to fulfil." 

"You honour us," Actor said, with a bow.

"You don't come here very often, my dear. Nor do you normally bring such... interesting... guests." With that she slid the robe from her shoulders and let it drop to the floor.

She was naked under it, her body full, deep-breasted and mature.

Garrison gulped, felt his cock jerk against the cloth of his pants, knew that there was no way he could conceal it.

He glanced at Actor, who was watching avidly.

The idea of having sex in front of Actor, who had so much more experience than he did, horrified him, yet it excited him at the same time...

"I think the Warden is a little shy," Actor said to Morwen.

She smiled, cupped Garrison's face in her hands and kissed him gently. "There is nothing more simple, nothing more natural. It is our oldest instinct. But Actor will lead the way for you." Then she turned back to Actor, reached out, and undressed him by simply lifting the robe over his head and tossing it aside.

Beneath it, he was fully and impressively erect.

She rested her hands on his hips, looking up at him with what was more a grin than a smile.

His was as wide and wolfish, as he slid his hands down to cup her buttocks and she slid hers slowly up his neck.

Their mouths met and devoured each other.

Garrison couldn't look away, didn't realise he was edging more closely to them.

Morwen's hands furrowed Actor's dark hair, then locked on the back of his neck. Muscles bulged in the shoulders below them as Actor lifted her in a feat of strength that Garrison doubted he could have equalled, then lowered her onto his swollen and steel-hard sex. Her legs twisted to knot over his hips, her shoulders tipping back to brace against the wall, arching upwards, giving Actor room to thrust deeper and deeper into the dark hollow between her spread thighs, the soft sucking and softer moans melding into the distant music.

Oh Christ, Garrison thought, knowing he should look away, but all his strength was throbbing into his groin, taking his reason with it.

Then Actor turned about with Morwen balanced on his hips, with an ease that left Garrison gasping, folded them down onto the bed, and proceeded to drive them both to an ecstatic consummation.

Garrison had to bite his lips to stop himself coming when they did.

Then Actor rolled away and onto his back, lifted a hand and - before a bemused and embarrassed Garrison became aware of his purpose - jerked the knot on the drawstring of those ridiculous pants loose. 

"Hey–!"

It was too late. Even as Garrison made an ineffectual grab for the slipping pants, Actor yanked him down onto the bed.

He fell into Morwen's embrace, his lips onto the softness of her lips, his hands onto the swell of her breasts, nipples hard as pebbles against his palms, his knees between her spreading thighs.

Already painfully erect, the thought of following where Actor had already gone was almost enough to make him come in itself. No longer in control, he thrust into her wet womanhood, slick and sticky with Actor's semen. She engulfed him, taking his reason in a tide of animal need.

It was only when the tide pulsed out of him that it left space for returning intelligence.

He rolled over, gasping for breath, horribly ashamed that he had not given a thought to Morwen, had simply taken what he wanted, not even her so much as being closer to Actor than he could get in any other way...

And he heard Morwen laugh, as her hands did impossible things to his body. Then she was straddling him, riding him into a storm of passion, so he could see nothing but her face, feel nothing but her womanhood whipping him into the teeth of the gale, the winds of passion stripping away every restraint, every artifice. All his tension, all the restraints of duty and discipline were torn from him, and exorcised when he finally came.

Afterwards, as he lay exhausted and hardly conscious on the bed, Morwen, glowing with a satisfaction he was sure had little to do with him, had pulled on her dress, picked up the lamp, and left.

So it was Actor who held him close in a room lit by glowing embers.

And, without being asked, he found himself telling the conman everything that had happened to him at Drachgiftzahn, about what Steyrer had said to him, about the horrors that haunted his dreams, the fears that would not be banished by logic.

"My father died before I was born," he said. "He couldn't've been more than about twenty-four, twenty-five. And there was some sort of mystery, something my uncle wouldn't tell my mother. And both my paternal grandparents were dead, too. D'you think there could be something in it?"

"The Curse of the Garrisons?" Actor suggested, with a chuckle, but his arms had tightened. "If anyone – anything – wants to kill you they will have to kill me first. I will not leave you. I love you – as comrade, friend, brother, father..." His voice fell to a whisper. "Even lover. Whatever you want from me, I give you willingly."

After all, it was a dream, and in a dream, anything was possible, even this sort of conversation.

Other things, too.

Well, why not? 

"All of them," he said, and drew Actor into a kiss.

 

Waking suddenly, Garrison shoved himself up onto his elbow, looking wildly about him for the companions he had been sure were sharing his bed.

The cat stared back from the frost-white window, green-eyed and enigmatic. Except for himself, it was the only living thing in the room.

Garrison took a deep breath, then blew it out in a cloud of condensation.

Cold. But the inn had been warm, and the steam bath...

But this was no inn. He was back in his room at the manor house.

What's more, that inn – and Morwen – could not have been real. Not in wartime England.

None of it could have been real.

Yeah, he must have gone to sleep – in the jeep, maybe – and Actor, who was as soft as butter under the layers of charm and self-interest, wouldn't have had the heart to wake him. He must have driven back here and put him to bed, his touch triggering the erotic dream—

The details of which sent heat rushing to his face.

He could almost hear Goniff's voice: _"Too long without it, that's your trouble, matey."_

I'm not an animal.

_"It is our oldest instinct."_

But that was a voice from his dream, from his own head.

Self justification.

Well, perhaps it was the oldest instinct, but not the most important. That was to protect: self, family, friends and comrades...

The cat's head butted his hand.

Yeah, right, and all that lived and all the good living created.

That was the instinct he'd been responding to when he joined the army, when he'd bargained an early parole for his men, when he'd brought the prisoners out of Drachgiftzahn...

And perhaps the dream had been no more than that instinct asserting itself.

And perhaps telling him that he could trust Actor with his fears.

Not much use in that, when Actor would soon be gone, along with the other cons.

But "You do not get rid of me that easily," he'd said.

That wasn't part of the dream.

Maybe, just maybe, if he could do some very fast talking, he could persuade the Generals to let him take Actor with him. And maybe, just maybe, that was what Actor wanted him to do.

Well, he'd never know unless he asked.

He picked up the cat in his arms and, following his instincts, went to find Actor.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: the words to _Shiloh's Hill_ are by M.G. Smith, who was there. I first heard it on the _Songs of the Confederacy_ tape, bought by one of my friends who is a (British!) American Civil War re-enactor. It has always struck me are being amazingly unpartisan for that particular war (and compared to most of the songs on that tape.)


End file.
